£9* 



& * 



'*- ~\.J>' .<*dK\ " %J ' v 










y>. 






















1?^ 












^^ 



«feV 

Pis 



*^ -A 



v*cr 








V • * * •* 

• ^ A* ^ 






+*o« 



;- "+*«■» 



y 



MR. TTSOXPS LETTER 



TO THE 



ABOLITIONISTS 



OF 



3>tRU0i&D!BlliIPKUUla 



THE 



DOCTRINES 



OF THE 



"ABOLITIONISTS" 



Life M rv 



JN A LETTER FROM 

J. WASHINGTON TYSON, 
THE DEMOCRATIC HARRISON 

CANDIDATE FOR 

CONGRESS, 

IN THE 

First District, of Pennsylvania, 

PHILADELPHIA, 

1840, 



Philadelphia, September 17, 1S40. 

J. Washington Tyson, Esq. 

Sir—As a Committee appointed by a meeting of 
citizens, we beg leave to ask of you, as a candidate for 
office at the approaching election, a reply to the follow- 
ing question : 

" Are you in favor of such alteration of the Con- 
stitution and Laws of the United States and of this 
State, as shall, in the manner most consistent with jus- 
tice and sound policy, release the people of this com- 
monwealth from all participation in holding human 
beings in slavery?" 

Should your reply not be received by the 23d inst, 

we shall understand that you decline answering the 

question. 

Very respectfully, 

Your fellow citizens, 

SAMUEL D. HASTINGS, 
LEWIS BEEBE, 
WILLIAM THOMPSON, 
JAMES WOOD, 
ELI DILLIN, 
WARNER JUSTICE, 
G. W. WOOLEY, 
RALPH SMITH, 

Committee. 



3£E. T7^0H 5 S RBFLT. 

. 

Philadelphia, September 33, 1810. 

Gentlemen : — I have received the note which " as 
a committee appointed by a meeting of citizens," you 
have addressed me, inquiring whether I am " in favor 
of such alteration of the Constitution and laws of the 
United States and of this State, as shall, in the manner 
most consistent with justice and sound policy, release 
the people of this Commonwealth from all participa- 
tion in holding human beings in slavery?" 

As you have not apprised me of the character in 
which you propose this question, I am at a loss whether 
to regard you as philanthropists or politicians. If as 
the former, you will pardon me for expressing regret 
that you have fallen into the error which, unfortunately, 
is in danger of becoming habitual in this country — of 
mingling questions of a benevolent cast with politics. 
Partizan struggles already involve considerations of a 
sufficiently exciting nature, without this additional 
source of popular vexation. Besides, it is difficult to 
perceive how any work of charity can be promoted by 
confounding or blending it with questions of a wholly 
uncongenial character, If, on the other hand, you pro- 
pound the inquiry as politicians, I am not aware that 
you have any claim on my attention, since you have 
formed an exclusive organization, nominated candi- 
dates for President and Vice President, and assumed 
an attitude of hostility to Gen. Ilanison and to the 
party of which 1 am a member and a candidate. Lest, 
however, gentlemen, a disposition, to conceal my views 
might be imputed, and recognising the correlative of 



the right of instruction — the right of any portion of the 
People to interrogate candidates for their suffrages? 
touching measures of popular interest — Iwi'l wave this 
objection, and frankly avow the opinions I entertain on 
this subject. 

Being unconscious of the existence of any legal 
obstacle to the manumission of such slaves as are still 
held in Pennsylvania, I confess that it has cost me no 
little reflection to derive from your ambiguous interro- 
gatory the real point at issue. If you consider cur 
Federal relations with the Southern States, as involv- 
ing Pennsylvania in any "participation in holding hu- 
man beings in slavery,' 1 you cannot be ignorant cf the 
fact, that your impressions are wholly at variance with 
the uniform judicial and all authoritative expositions 
of the Constitution. Believing that we have no such 
participation, I am opposed to any " alteration of the 
Constitution and Laws of the United States," which 
would render liable to pragmatical interference an inr- 
stitution under the exclusive control of the States in 
which it exist. 

Though the rights of the District of Coulumbia 
may differ from those of sovereign States in form, they 
are, in this particular, substantially the same. With 
jurisconsults " the reason and spirit of a law," has ever 
been the most effectual mode of discovering its true 
meaning. Will it then be contended that Virginia and 
Maryland would have become parties to any arrange- 
ment which might convert the territory ceded to the 
Federal government, into a refuge for absconding 
slaves ? Or will it be pretended that their co-slave- 
states would have sanctioned a provision of the Con- 
stitution, which might subject them in any contin- 
gency to the dangerous example of such a neighbour? 



The territory in question was granted for a specific pur- 
pose, and the « reason and spirit 11 of the cession pre- 
clude the exercise cf any control over it not indis^en- 
sible to that end. I believe, therefore, that comity, 
good faith and the integrity of the Union forbid any 
alteration of the conditions upon which the grant was 
made. The numerical superiority or physical power 
of the free states, does not weaken the force of these 
objections. Constitutions are made for minorities — to 
protect the weak from the aggressions of the strong. 

You will excuse me for expressing the opinion that 
if polemic or militant anti-slavery in the free States 
was ever wise, it has ceased to be so since the imper- 
tinent, mischievous, and criminal intermeddling of the 
politicians and subjects of Great Britain. There is 
serious cause for the apprehension, that if persisted in, 
it will indefinitely postpone even the incipient steps to 
the abrogation of the system in those States which 
have long been anxious to get rid of it. Let it not be 
forgotten, that the existence of the institution of sla- 
very, is the misfortune and not the fault of the 
South. To England belongs the responsibility, and to 
her attaches the odium of introducing it upon our shorep. 
In the recollection of the constant and urgent though, 
fruitless, remonstrances of our ancestors against the 
spirit of cupidity which actuated her ministry in the 
encouragement of the slave-trade, no citizen of this coun- 
try, who possesses the proper American feeling, can 
fail to be indignant at the calumnies with which her 
statesmen and public journalists habitually assail us. 
Shame, if no higher motive, should restrain them 
in their work of national defamation, while Ireland and 
British India groan beneath the accumulated wrongs 
of England. Let them first justify the outrage against 



6 

civilization and humanity committed in the " Opium 
war" with China, before they essay to correct our morals 
or school us in the principles of Christianity. The 
Asiatic colonies of England furnish an ample field for 
the diffusive philanthrophy of her missionaries, with- 
out resorting to the shores of America. 

There no longer remains a doubt that the agitation 
of this topic in London, has been produced by a sinister 
hostility to the United States. It is not the fruit of an 
honest conviction of duty, among those who are the in- 
struments of the excitement, but of the canting hypo- 
crisy of functionaries unable to suppress an instinctive 
jealousy towards this country, common among the mem- 
bers of the English government. The politicians of 
that country evidently fancy they discern in this ques- 
tion, an entering wedge by which the union of these 
states may be severed — a consummation long desired by 
the enemies of republicanism. There is no mistaking 
the remarks of the President of the late Anti-Slavery 
Convention of London : — 

" My dear friends," said Mr. Clarkson addressing 
that body, "you must endeavour by all justifiable 
means to affect their (the southern States) temporal in- 
terests. You must endeavor, among other things, to 
have the produce of free tropical labor brought into the 
markets of Europe, and undersell them there— and if 
you can do this your victory is sure." That no doubt 
may linger in your minds of the determination to ren- 
der the anti-slavery excitement subservient to the inter- 
ests of British trade, I annex another extract from the 
speech of Mr. Clarkson — being the remarks which im- 
mediately follow those above quoted. 

"Now that this is possible, and this may be done 
there is no question. The East India Company alone 



can do it of themselves, and they can do it by means 
that are perfectly moral and pacific ; according to your 
own principles, namely, by the cultivation of the earth 
and by the employment of free labor. They may if they 
please, not only have the high honor of abolishing Sla- 
very and the Slave Trade, but the advantage of increas- 
ing their revenue beyond all calculation; for, in the 
first place, they have land in their possession twenty 
times more than equal to the supply of all Europe with 
Tropical produce; in the second place, they can procure, 
not tens of thousands, but tens of millions of free la- 
borers to work; in the third, what is of the greatest 
consequence in this case, the price of labor with these 
is only from a penny to three-half-pence per day. What 
slavery can stand against these prices? I learn, too, 
from letters which I have seen from India, and from 
the Company's own Reports, that they have long 
been engaged, shall I say providentially engaged, 
in preparing seeds for the cultivation of cotton 
there. Now if we take into consideration all these pre- 
vious preparations (by which it appears that they are 
ready to start,) and add to this the consideration that 
they could procure, not tens of thousands, but tens of 
millions of free laborers to work — I speak from autho- 
rity—I believe that if they would follow up their plans 
heartily, and with spirit according to their means, that 
in the course of six years, they would materially affect 
the price of this article at market, and in twelve that 
they would be able to turn the tide completely against 
the growers of it in the United states." 

It is difficult to believe that there were American 
citizens present and participating in the proceedings of 
the Convention to which such remarks were addressed, 
and that they were so craven in spirit and recreant to 



8 

the honour and welfare of their country, as to applaud 
them. Yet such is the humiliating fact. Believe me, 
gentlemen, Christianity is against you, leagued with 
England, in such an unnatural crusade against your 
countrymen. Can you be surprised that our southern 
brethren are unable to reason calmly on this subject, un- 
der the consciousness that a portion of their fellow citi- 
zens are in effect aiding our old enemy to place the torch 
and the knife in the hands of an unfortunate and half ci- 
vilized race living in their midst, with the implied in- 
junction to use them? Produce or precipitate a struggle 
for the mastery, between your own and the African races 
of this country, and you can derive no justification from 
the precepts of ethics or religion. The admonition to 
"love thy neighbour as thyself," contains no com- 
mand to love him better. This is the fearful issue to 
which there is abundant reason to apprehend we shall 
be hurried, if the spirit of rabid fanaticism, excited and 
directed by English calculations of gain, be not arrested 
and curbed in the free States. Believing this, I would 
be unworthy of public confidence were I to hesitate to 
oppose the requirements of so disastrous an excitement. 
I have thus, gentlemen, frankly, but, in conse- 
quence of many pressing duties, hastily and imperfectly 
replied to your question. 

I am, very respectfully, 

Your fellow citizen, 

J. WASHINGTON TYSON. 

To Messrs. Samuel D.Hastings, Lewis Bebee, William 
Thompson, James Wood, Eli Dillin, Warner Justice, 
G. W. Wouley, and Ralph Smith, Committee, &c. 



54 



£°+ 









^ «♦ 
W 

^»^#» 
^ ^ 


















3$ »£ 



*< 









• •• 





^ "* A^ •• ^ *•"• <& »«• *^ 



















'it'WFjr %*JRI^ , V V 7 ^'^ V*' 









*\/' •' 









1* J? £, •*CSK3* 4T *Kt> oWMSy* «? *&. •©IBS* 








«& ^ ^^ * a\^ 




^•> T °\<** . 



V • * • ° 







% A* ^ 

3 ^ 









°v^>° v^>* v^V ♦ 

S&*. 1k#-^0feT- ** ♦♦ »kSMfe\ -* daft*. 

TC vntrt n 



